Posted on 04/21/2009 11:19:06 AM PDT by Maelstorm
I agree with you. My wife and I have had extensive conversations with other parents who tell us our children are always welcome. Heck I had one that said they hope some of my daughter would “rub off” on theirs. So I am giving them the tools they need to succeed in life.
In addition, we volunteer for PTA, the school office and I have ran for the school board; we are attempting to fight from the inside. My children have argued with teachers about many things - mostly revisionist history (they have read my Marine Corps books as compared to their school books).
I give/gave all my children the same tools, but if they don’t use them or miss-apply them, then there is nothing we can do as parents. Ultimately they make their own decisions. For example, I have a nineteen year old that has soooo many “different” views from what we have taught our children that both my twenty-three and fifteen year old’s asked, “Did she grow up in the same house that I did?”
She got compliments from parents about her courtesy and respect and knowledge - now she is an Obama NUT CASE! None of THAT came from my house or my teaching - we just have to keep fighting!
Yes we fought a war over blacks being slaves; led by a Conservative Republican President who knew the meaning of Lives, Fortunes and Sacred Honor. If you disapprove of the Declaration of Independence not only would I not consider you a conservative, I would not consider you an American; what are you doing on Free Republic.
The endemic "multiculturalism" is anathema to education and helps push their ideology. Education is a process where students should be taught to pursue the truth about the important human things: what's noble, what's base, what's virtuous, what's vicious, good, bad, just, unjust. Multiculturalism's premise is that those things don't exist. They are whatever a culture decides they should be i.e. ideology.
Banning the Bible from education basically bans education. If kids are not presented the options of how life should be lead, they have an Empty mind not an Open mind. Public education promotes mindlessness. Not to mention that with ignorance of the Bible, reading and understanding Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton . . . etc. is virtually impossible.
FORCING your neighbors to pay for your kids violates the 6th and tenth commandments and makes a mockery of our inalienable rights protected by the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
That doesn't even include the perils of the drug and sex culture that infect public schools today.
I could go on, but I'm not accepting excuses. You're part of the problem.
With all due respect, but you need to argue against the LAW not the school. You complain about the taxes and money, but you fail to realize (or ignore) the fact that the law requires us to send our kids to school.
Of course, we could home school - but many states have made this almost impossible or they have put such constraints on what they consider to be “acceptable” teaching that your only other choice is to send them to private school - while still being forced (by law and taxes) to continue to pay for a failing system!
What is wrong with teaching kids to be what they want or even what we need them to be - remember the good old days? My grandfather was a painter - he taught my father - he taught all of us kids (and for about four years three of his kids owned a successful painting company)! But, in this day and age, teaching a child or young adult to be a useful part of society isn’t enough - they have to be trained a foreign language and about diversity (you can’t indoctrinate those that are not at the school)!
In other words, don’t just complain about the FORCED taxes, complain about the ENTIRE package. If that is your message, then hey, I agree - COMPLETELY! But, until society gets out of my house, that is not going to happen.
So, until the above happens, I am forced to send my kids there - by law and by circumstance, so I teach what I can at home to contradict the stupidity with which they are inundated all day long. Oh yeah, that is called parenting!
We got a letter from our daughter’s teacher, because out of a class of 32 students, she was the only one that said we sit down and eat dinner together every night - THAT is probably the BIGGEST part of the problem. Parents don’t even KNOW what their kids were exposed to during that school day. So, I can’t change schools to be some utopia over night, but I certainly can’t fight twenty-two local, county, state and federal mandates concerning MY child’s REQUIRED indoct.., er, uh, education.
Let’s not argue within, let’s fight to right ALL the wrongs!
So: should all conservatives just go into a communal setting and hide away? For me, Jesus engaged his culture where they were. I think christians have a mandate to be a part of where they are.
It sounds like you are made. Okay, I agree with you about the freedom of choice act—it will be used to destroy moral healthcare providers.
I do not like the NEA any more than you do.
I do not support multiculturalism since it denies my kids the joy of being who they are. I believe this to be one of the most destructive arguments to attack America and the church in the last ten years. Too many churches have adopted this concept and have lost sight of people. They have spent far too much time celebrating minorities at the expense of the normal white kids in a church or school.
However, the public school forum must not be abandoned. At least not yet. If we give up, how many kids who do not have a choice or a witness or another voice to speak for them—how many of them will suffer because someone chooses to be self-thinking?
The perils of sex and drugs are just as rampant at your local christian schools. If you think not, better check again. Kids can be taught to say no.
Too bad you are soooooo mad and want to blame me as part of the problem. I am a part of the answer everyday because I send my son to a school he is making a difference at. I am part of the answer because I continue to engage people with truth.
I have seen plenty of families send their kids off to the christian school thinking they were protecting their kids from the evils of the world. Some came out okay, but most had to deal with the very same issues right there in the christian school as in the public school. The area where I live is one of the most “churched” areas in the entire country. We have more private christian schools than jsut about anywhere in the country. Yet, because of the influence of the church in our community, our public school stands as a beacon of truth and light in a world filled with darkness. Why abandon that?
I could go on, but methinks you are still upset.
Thanks for being a voice of reason where there is a rant.
I could not have said it any better.
When I look at the “kids” at our church, the children, the tweens and the teens, I see mostly good people. All of them have attended the same public schools as did many of their parents. My daughter is the exception, my husband and I are “come heres” and so did not attend school here.
The one child nearly the entire congregation is concerned about has a mother who thinks the child can do no wrong and everyone else is at fault. This is a mother that will not question anything, unless of course someone is saying her child is wrong. Her entire outlook on life is wrong, and she is teaching that to her child, who has now become one of the worst bullies in the school.
My child is no angel, and I’m the first to admit it, yet I am constantly complimented about her manners, decorum, and her ability to hold a conversation on a level above that of the 10yo she is.
The schools can not undo a good upbringing, no matter what the naysayers profess.
So, what do you two make of the Barna study that shows that, just working from memory here, only 4% of publicly schooled students retain their faith through their sophomore year in college,
while homeschooled kids have a 90+% retention rate through graduation?
Christian private schooled kids didn’t fair much better than the public school kids.
And what do you propose should be done?
All you have done is criticize, rather nastily, those who have chosen to work within the current system without offering any solutions.
Your sanctimonious tirades are just fine for the internet, they are useless in the real world without concrete suggestions.
And on that note, my daughter has softball practice and I must leave for a few hours. I will pick this up when I return.
It’s not just a problem for the kids ages 5-18. It is also a problem for those kids who enter college. The numbers are just as astounding. I remember what a wise Pastor taught us several years ago. He warned everyone about the second and third generations of believers in the family. They were the ones who needed to make a decision for Christ for themselves. Often, these next generations have found it easier to go on the coattails of their parents, than realize their faith is a very personal decision.
Your stats are right on. Homeschooling works, if you can do it. No argument there. I know several families that have done this, it worked well for them. However, they have still had to deal with the college aged decision process.
ah the myth about the war
no the war was not over slavery at all , with out a doubt it was not.
The point I said to you and I’ll say it again is
who are you to say what we who send our kids ot public school are not conservatives
you have that right but most certainly you are wrong.
You do not know me, nor do you know others off here or even the people who live down here including teachers and parents.
Who the hell do you think you are to class people as conservatives or not anyway?
As for your view that the war was over slavery I suggest you maybe should have gone to history class
Having a multi-generational view,
and a father that understands his duty to disciple the family,
and teaching children to discern the “hollow and deceptive philosophies” (Col 2:8) of the world -
those all help tremendously. And the Barna study showed that these things “armor up” the student, even in the college environment.
There are alternatives to those colleges now, and will be more in the future. Ever heard of Patrick Henry University?
Thank you. Our system is not perfect and I am no advocate for public schooling; however, since I cannot remove it, then I should work to make it the best it can be!
Stats (Barna, SBC study) prove this to be wrong... though it would be hard to quantify "good upbringing".
you know
who the hell does this person think he is saying people who have their kids in public schools are not conservatives
He doesn’t even know us and then states what he said over the internet sat in front of his computer about 1200 miles away from me seeing he is way up north
As for the rest of your post and the other poster who raised their kids in a good Christian way then I applaud you and agree
what exactly is a gay issue?
I think this poster is way out of line
who the hell does this person think he is when he doesn;t know any of us.
He uses the argument of well why should my tax money pay for schools, well why should my tax money pay for other services I do not use,
I’m down south why did my tax money pay for a construction project not a hundred miles away from him and yes that cost us in federal money billions
No doubt he uses that road system I do not yet I paid for it
I can’t even believe the arrogance saying who they think is a conservative and who is not.
I bet they do not have kids so they cannot judge until they have walked in our shoes
I’m not upset at all, just calling a spade a spade, nor am I suggesting communal living, nor am I ignorant about the problems of sex and drugs in christian schools. My points is that concept of “public school” in today’s America violates every principle this country was founded on. Conservatism is the attempt to conserve those principles. If you are unwilling to pledge your lives your fortunes and you sacred honor like the hero’s of ‘76 some introspection is required.
To make a religious analogy. I’m not the priest who hears the confessions or dishes out the penance, but I do know what sins are.
Take your kids out of public school.
I don’t send my kids to public school.
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